Purpose: Lesson study is one of the most adopted models of teacher professional development. However, as education has become increasingly digital, this study aims to investigate the use of digital tools to support teacher professional development in lesson studies. Design/methodology/approach: This article systematically reviews journal articles…

Although we know that asking questions is an essential aspect of online tutoring, there is limited research on this topic. The aim of this paper was to identify commonly used direct question types and explore the effects of using these question types on conversation intensity, approach to tutoring, perceived satisfaction and perceived learning.…

Online tutors play a critical role in e-learning and need to have an appropriate set of skills in addition to subject matter expertise. This paper explores how digital badges can be used to encourage the development of online tutoring skills. Based on previous research, we defined three digital badges, which are examples of essential tutoring…

Emotions have been confirmed to be a critical component of the process of learning. In the online Community of Inquiry theoretical framework, and the recently suggested online Relationship of Inquiry framework, emotions are considered a subsection of social presence. In this study, the concept of emotional presence is examined. This examination…

The aim of this paper is to describe student-student online coaching, defined as "an online service where a student gets support on a specific subject matter from a more experienced student". Student-student online coaching emphasizes learning a subject matter by giving a student the opportunity to get coached by a coach, i.e. a more experienced…

The aim of this study is to describe and explore how instant messaging (IM) can be used to support informal math coaching. We have studied two projects where university students use IM to coach K-12 students in mathematics. The coaches were interviewed with a focus on how informal coaching works by examining coaching challenges, how coaching can…

There are comparatively few studies on one-to-one tutoring in online settings, even though it has been found to be an effective model. This paper explores student-student online coaching from the coach perspective. The empirical case is the project Math Coach, where K-12 students are coached by teacher students using instant messaging. This…

Synchronous e-learning has received much less research attention, as compared with asynchronous e-learning. Practitioners that consider using and designing synchronous e-learning are in urgent need of guidance. In order to address this need, we propose design exemplars for synchronous e-learning. They are directed towards a primary constituent…

It is commonly argued that a key challenge for e-learning is to encourage learner participation. Even though this challenge has received increased attention by researchers, little effort has been put into developing a sound theoretical understanding of what online participation actually is and how it may be studied empirically. This paper examines…

The field of research on computer-mediated communication (CMC) in education is a relatively new research area. A summary of the latest research is useful to show what methodologies and research topics have been emphasized in order to be better prepared for the future by uncovering areas where there is a lack of research. The study examines…

Achieving active participation has been argued to be an intrinsic part of learning and has become a central issue in debates on online education. This research examines whether an emerging synchronous communication medium, instant messaging (IM), may enable students in participating more actively in a distance learning course. In doing this, it is…

Achieving student participation, it has been argued, is one of the most important challenges in distance education. This explorative study examines whether a synchronous communication medium, instant messaging (IM), may enable students to participate more actively in online group work. When comparing two groups that adopted IM with two groups that…